Great video. There was a lot I didn't know about the history of this series.

I got into the Force games a decade ago with the release of Sonic's Ultimate Genesis Collection for PS3/360. I didn't know what I was getting into when I picked the games out from the collection, but the name Shining Force sounded cool so I booted it up. Since I love strategy rpgs it was right up my alley. Shining Force 2, which is how one should approach a sequel now stands as my favourite Genesis title and is a potential top 20 game of all time.

Some things that stood out for me while playing this series are the fact centaurs are you cavalry, omission of permadeath, nice blend of sci-fi with high fantasy(i.e. the ancients) and many of the classes are cool especially mastermonk.

I didn't play Fire Emblem till way after Shining Force and the whole idea of permadeath was frightening. I still prefer SF over FE because if I /need/ to, I can grind a few levels. (Mind you, I do still love FE as well!)

Fire Emblem is, generally speaking, kind enough to let you muddle your way through even if you play suboptimally (the earlier games at least have a tendency to throw a ready made endgame character or weapon to help you through the final chapter/boss). In fact, they generally play better when you aren't trying to follow a guide to the letter.

The only things you should bother looking at a guide for in regards to earlier FE games are recruitment requirements (as a couple do get rather guide dammit at times) and secret shop locations.

Of course the more recent games seem to have found new life as shipping simulators if that's more to your speed (its more my speed than trying to ship a centaur to a bird lady at least).

I didn't play Fire Emblem till way after Shining Force and the whole idea of permadeath was frightening. I still prefer SF over FE because if I /need/ to, I can grind a few levels. (Mind you, I do still love FE as well!)

I'm the opposite as I started with the Fire Emblem series. Despite the omission of permadeath I like that the games still offered a challenge. I've already brought up the kraken battle in SF2 in another post. Some characters can get 1 hit ko'd by spells or strong attacks if you're not too careful.

Two things I forgot to mention in my first post in this thread is game balance and promotion. Back to FE I vastly prefer using mages in the SF games due to the affect magic is area-effect level 2 and up. So satisfying to annihilate a cluster of foes thanks to one character. Warriors are much more enjoyable to use than armor knights because double attacks are random, don't have to worry about effective damage and the ai in some games prioritizing attacking them.The way promotion works in this series is also interesting since level gains might be better if you hold off promoting. Lots of arguments can be made for promoting some characters super early or late.

Fire Emblem is, generally speaking, kind enough to let you muddle your way through even if you play suboptimally (the earlier games at least have a tendency to throw a ready made endgame character or weapon to help you through the final chapter/boss). In fact, they generally play better when you aren't trying to follow a guide to the letter.

Yeah the FE series definitely does throw the player a bone in some way towards beating the game. Book of Naga definitely comes to mind.